Share DON'T PRETEND THAT YOU KNOW ME - The Mojomatics (Impedance Records)
Well this has been sitting around on the "to review" pile for quite some time now. When reaching for the next cab off of the rank, I saw the cover and shuddered. I kept gazing at the scraggy indie beard, the smug look and the incredibly crap suits. These guys are from Venice, Italy. Surely they know something about tailoring. I kept thinking of that minimalist grouping of drummer and guitarist. Move along. I'll review something else. Anything else. Please Mr Barman. Don't make me listen to this!
Since the White Stripes, half the dweebs on Planet Earth think they could somehow make themselves appear cool by setting themselves up in a similar musical formation. Besides, it made rehearsals easier and you didn't have to split the money in so many ways. What these people rarely had was Jack White's song writing ability and Meg White's sexier than thou drumming. Instead, we inevitably found ourselves listening to two ugly blokes in need of shaves pretending to be the future of rock and roll. Insert the name of your least favourite offenders here. I'm already in too much trouble to name names. The death threats have only just lowered themselves to manageable levels from last time.
So there I was – steeling myself towards tearing these Continental posers a new arsehole. I loaded up the CD player and sharpened my claws…but was rather surprised to hear magic pouring out of the speakers. That's right. Magic. The glorious sound of rock and roll. The Mojomatics are more than just competent garage punkers who have somehow struck a formula that works. They write good, strong melodic songs and have trimmed their arrangements to match their cloth. There are no extended solos to prove non-existent blues credentials. They show no fear of a minor chord or a middle eight whilst still keeping the energy levels in the red. Better still, they have the one true hallmark of cool; they make it look and sound easy.
You hear the flash of influences here and there - a little bit of the New York Dolls - a splash of Green Day - a back catalogue of '60s British Invasion. It's all put together quite nicely but not over obviously.
In fact, the only reason I didn't give this the full five bottle treatment was that half way through they do a song called "Stars Above" in the style of noisy Latino cow punk and it kind of broke the mood. The CD contains two bonus tracks, one of which is another version of "Stars Above" in a more psychedelic style. It stands so far above the official album version that it is hard to imagine why they would have admitted the inferior take.
That's it. No further complaints. No barbed comments. No snide innuendo. If you want a good review from me, all you have to do is send in a halfway decent album. The Mojomatics are worthy of your attention and I recommend them to you. - Bob Short
1/2
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